Survival
by Charis M
Summary: "She survives. It's what she does. Even now, they seem to speak a different language; he understands little how removed from living surviving can be." He is the last person she would have expected on her doorstep. [post-S2]


**Survival  
**

 _P_ _rompt: Meme for Milathos if you are still taking requests " You can not tear your own heart out and survive . Nobody knows this better than we do. In the end neither one of us was ever able to truly walk away._

 _Hey look, it's something in show canon/that isn't AU! (At least, not until Season 3 inevitably Josses it ...) This one takes place after Season 2, several years into the war, and presumes the Musketeers travelling to England for some reason. Prompt lines inserted as dialogue rather than as a starter because it just seemed to fit better._

* * *

Whatever she expects when she answers the door, it's not him. Rare is the visitor who knocks these days – furtive taps are far more common, and visitors less frequent than missives left by her informants. And so she's ill-prepared when she sees the man waiting on her doorstep, hand poised to knock again, which perhaps explains why instead of a proper greeting (though in fairness, she cannot recall the last time they were anything remotely approaching proper) she blurts out, almost an accusation, "What are you doing here?"

His other hand, resting lightly on his sword-hilt, relaxes; her eyes flick from that motion back to his face, meet his as he answers, "Looking for you."

"Why?"

"Is it so strange that I should wonder after you?" But she just looks at him, not opening the door any further or giving him leeway to enter (because if she moves, god, if she moves then surely she will let him into more than just her home, and she is unwilling to chance that, even – especially – with the years between them), and his mouth twists. "We need to talk."

Again, "Why?"

That grim, frustrated line softens a little, almost grudgingly. "Because you cannot tear your own heart out and survive. Nobody knows this better than we do. In the end, neither one of us was ever able to truly walk away."

But he evidently _has_ managed, she thinks as she studies him more closely – because despite the toll this war is taking (and she can see that now, in shadows under his eyes and how his cheeks have hollowed beneath ill-trimmed auburn scruff), he looks more whole than he has in years. She had watched him from the shadows when they were both in Paris, greedy for what she could steal of his presence, but this man is more stranger to her than not, is – a rare moment of fancy – what she might have expected the young Comte de la Fère to grow up to become, had his world not shattered. He looks _steady_ in a way he never has before, as if for the first time in years he stands on solid ground, certain in who and what he is.

Envy blooms in her breast, because if he has steadied then it is she who is now on shifting sands, who has had the world pulled out from under her (and hasn't that happened enough times that she deserves more, _better_ , a chance to find her own footing?), who is left trying to find how she fits into the world once again. She has defined herself so often by the masks she's worn, had found that with those stripped bare she was little more than a woman tired and uncertain and wanting, aching in a way that leaves her wanting to claw the heart from her chest, because she had known he would not follow her but had not imagined that the inevitable reality would hurt so damned much. She had thought her heart dead, more the fool she, but his words are an all too painful truth, a reminder that it still beats there no matter how she might will it to become stone.

(She survives. It's what she does. Even now, they seem to speak a different language; he understands little how removed from living surviving can be.)

And yet he is the one at her door; he is the one who found her, and that can't have been easy when she has changed in so many ways – and yet those changes were only skin-deep, and beneath she is the same broken, furious girl she's been for so long, and small wonder he still knew her well enough to be standing there, pale blue eyes far too perceptive in the shadow of his hat. It seems monstrously unfair that he can see to that shattered heart of her even now, as if those changes in him should have made it impossible, should have allowed her at least the ability to cloak herself in remote disdain if she cannot actually armour herself against him.

She shouldn't let him in but she does; this is one conversation she does not want some nosy neighbour to see. With the door closed once more behind him things seem tight, close, stifling, and she lashes out despite herself, wanting to cut him as he (unthinkingly, unknowingly) cuts her. "You seem to have dispensed with hearts well enough."

"Perhaps." It doesn't sound as if he agrees. "And yet here I am."

The words catches her off-guard. She looks at him steadily, a thousand retorts drying up on her tongue and leaving it leaden in her mouth. "Why?" is all she finally manages – the same word again, this time little more than a puff of air.

He reaches across the space between them; she lets him take her bare hand in his gloved one, feeling absurdly vulnerable when he covers it with his own to press it flat against his chest. Even now, through leather and cloth, his skin burns. She can feel the beating of his heart beneath her palm, a steady rhythm, still indubitably whole and present despite her accusation.

"Because," he says, and the words echo in his chest, reverberate through her, "surviving is not enough."

* * *

 _And that's the last of this year's fics crossposted from Tumblr! I still have some unfilled prompts to address in 2016, but I'm hoping to primarily focus on the sequel to Never and Always - and hoping twice over work leaves me enough brains to actually write!_

 _Thanks to everyone who's faved or subscribed, and especially to anyone who's left comments over this past year. You guys have made all the fretting_ _and frustration (and venturing into a scary new fandom for the first time in years) 100_ _% worth it and I love you all for it._


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